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Definition of Imagery
Imagery, in any sort of writing, refers to descriptive language that engages the human senses. For instance, the following lines from Robert Frost's poem "After Apple-Picking" contain imagery that engages... read full definition
Imagery, in any sort of writing, refers to descriptive language that engages the human senses. For instance, the following lines from Robert Frost's poem "After... read full definition
Imagery, in any sort of writing, refers to descriptive language that engages the human senses. For instance, the following lines... read full definition
Volume 3, Book 2: The Great Bourgeois
Explanation and Analysis—Gillenormand in a Rage:
For the most part, Marius was raised by his grandfather Monsieur Gillenormand, a tempered man and a staunch royalist. With imagery, the novel illustrates Gillenormand's begrudged character while also presenting him as a foil:
He was over ninety years of age, his walk was erect, he talked loudly, saw clearly, drank neat, ate, slept, and snored. He had all thirty-two of his teeth. He only wore spectacles when he read. He was of an amorous disposition, but declared that, for the last ten years, he had wholly and decidedly renounced women […] He was superficial, rapid, easily angered. He flew into a passion at everything, generally quite contrary to all reason. When contradicted, he raised his cane; he beat people as he had done in the great century. He had a daughter over fifty years of age, and unmarried, whom he chastised severely with his tongue, when in a rage, and whom he would have liked to whip.
Gillenormand is not painted as a likeable character in Les Misérables, particularly through this lurid description. Though Gillenormand is physically in good shape and seems to have his wits about him, he possesses a major flaw. His temper should not and cannot be overlooked, something Marius soon learns when Gillenormand evicts him from the house over a heated political argument.
There are also parallels here between Monsieur Gillenormand and Madame Thenardier, both of whom are guardians with tempers and tendencies to resort to violence. To create a foil, Fantine and Jean Valjean are people who have erred and sinned in the eyes of society but continue to be guardians with good hearts. Gillenormand, on the other hand, may have a good heart but does not always use it aptly. However, unlike Madame and Monsieur Thenardier, Gillenormand's love for his child prevails in the end, when he takes the injured Marius back into his life and blesses the marriage with Cosette.
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Volume 3, Book 3: The Grandfather and the Grandson
Explanation and Analysis—The Sounds of Battle:
As Marius learns more about his father's past following his death, his political thinking undergoes radical change. With imagery, the story transports Marius back to the battlefield where his father fought:
All sorts of reveries reached him from space, and mingled with his thoughts. What a spectacle is the night! One hears dull sounds, without knowing from where they proceed; one beholds Jupiter, which is twelve hundred times larger than the earth, glowing like a firebrand, the azure is black, the stars shine; it is formidable.
[…] It seemed to him at moments that his father passed close to him like a breath, and whispered in his ear; he gradually got into a singular state; he thought that he heard drums, cannon, trumpets, the measured tread of battalions, the dull and distant gallop of the cavalry.
Here, the novel uses auditory imagery to describe the feeling of Marius’s father being with him. The sounds all derive from the battlefield, between the cannon, the drums of war, and the gallops of horses. Marius's imagination is so deeply fueled by his obsession with Napoleon and his devotion to his father that he hears the battlefield in the darkness of the sky. It is as if Marius has been searching for transcendence and found it in the memory of his father. In this moment, the formidable, fiery sky mingles with memory to create a soundscape so vivid that Marius can feel his father's presence: Marius's night is truly a "spectacle" full of sounds and reveries.
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Volume 4, Book 3: The House in the Rue Plumet
Explanation and Analysis—The Advent of Beauty:
Once a wretched and mistreated servant of the Thenardiers, Cosette has much changed in the loving care of Jean Valjean. Cosette grows up to become a beautiful young lady, to which she expresses her surprise with imagery and a simile:
She was beautiful and lovely; she could not help agreeing with Toussaint and her mirror. Her figure was formed, her skin had grown white, her hair was lustrous, an unaccustomed splendor had been lighted in her blue eyes. The consciousness of her beauty burst upon her in an instant, like the sudden advent of daylight;[…] she descended to the garden again, thinking herself a queen, imagining that she heard the birds singing, though it was winter, seeing the sky gilded, the sun among the trees, flowers in the thickets, distracted, wild, in inexpressible delight.
Cosette is struck by her beauty, from her pale skin to her lit-from-within blue eyes. She feels as though her beauty came suddenly like the sun peeking over the horizon and bringing a powerful light. This simile expresses the magnificence but also natural inevitability of Cosette's beauty. Having endured such a rough childhood, Cosette was never taught to have respect for herself or even consider her own appearance. With Jean Valjean, she begins to grow into herself and heal from her childhood trauma. Her beauty was dormant within her, waiting for someone like Jean Valjean to give her hope and happiness.
The winter of Cosette's life has faded, and all she can see is the “sky gilded” and the “flowers in the thickets.” This visual imagery of both herself and the garden are parallels. Cosette has reached the spring of her life, both in terms of appearance and opportunity—everything is growing and on the verge of blossoming. She will fall in love with Marius not too long after this change within her.
Volume 5, Book 1: The War Between Four Walls
Explanation and Analysis—The Sound of Death:
When the fighting finally begins at the barricades, the scene is a tapestry of sensory imagery:
The death agony of the barricade was about to begin.
Everything contributed to its tragic majesty at that supreme moment; a thousand mysterious crashes in the air, the breath of armed masses set in movement in the streets that were not visible, the intermittent gallop of cavalry, the heavy shock of artillery on the march, the firing by squads, and the cannonades crossing each other in the labyrinth of Paris, the smokes of battle mounting all gilded above the roofs, indescribable and vaguely terrible cries, lightnings of menace everywhere, the tocsin of Saint-Merry, which now had the accents of a sob, the mildness of the weather, the splendor of the sky filled with sun and clouds, the beauty of the day, and the alarming silence of the houses.
In this long-awaited and feared moment, the story uses auditory imagery to paint a picture of chaos and agony, with the sounds of crashes, the gallops of horses, the shots of soldiers, and the cries of Parisians dying in the smoke and violence. Here, the narrator demonstrates how sound can be a very powerful tool to depict pain. The reader can close their eyes and imagine what it would feel like to hear these sounds of “death agony” from their own home. Sound carries emotion like no other sense, bringing one back to a certain place or memory with ease. The sound of battle is like music to the ears of soldiers, only the melodies are ones they pray to forget.
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Volume 5, Book 4: Javert Derailed
Explanation and Analysis—The Sepulchral Moment:
When Javert completes his final business at the police station, he wanders to the quay in the dead of night. The story uses imagery and a metaphor to paint the uncanny feeling of the night:
The darkness was complete. It was the sepulchral moment that follows midnight. A ceiling of clouds concealed the stars. Not a single light burned in the houses of the city; no one was passing; all of the streets and quays that could be seen were deserted; Notre-Dame and the towers of the courthouse seemed features of the night. A street lantern reddened the margin of the quay. The outlines of the bridges lay shapeless in the mist one behind the other. Recent rains had swollen the river.
After the battle at the barricades, the silence and emptiness of the city is eerie. The story uses a metaphor to depict the darkness blanketing the city, the clouds a ceiling above, pressing down like the oppression of royalists. The moment is compared to a sepulcher (a tomb)—it is not only chronologically the dead of night, but also the aftermath of the battle. It is as quiet as a tomb because the city has become one itself. The narrator also uses imagery to paint the now-blurred lines of the city: the bridges are shapeless on the horizon and the river is swollen. The city is a tender wound. “Reddened” and still reeling from the fighting, the city has retreated into the background, creating its shapeless appearance.
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Explanation and Analysis—The Fierce Abyss:
As Javert stares down into the depths of the Seine, he contemplates his existence in such a gray world. The narrator uses imagery and personification to illustrate his introspection amid the dark and foreboding waves of the river:
A sound of foam was audible; but the river could not be seen. At moments, in that dizzy depth, a gleam of light appeared, and undulated vaguely, water possessing the power of taking light, no one knows from where, and converting it into a snake. The light vanished, and all became indistinct once more. Immensity seemed thrown open there. What lay below was not water, it was a gulf. […] Nothing was to be seen, but the hostile chill of the water and the stale odor of the wet stones could be felt. A fierce breath rose from this abyss. The flood in the river, divined rather than perceived, the tragic whispering of the waves, the melancholy vastness of the arches of the bridge, the imaginable fall into that gloomy void, into all that shadow was full of horror.
Javert stands on the quay and contemplates his existence, staring down into the "abyss" below with horror both at the prospect of his own death and the immensity of the world waiting before him. The story uses a combination of imagery and personification to describe the undulating light and dark of the Seine, which not only sets the scene but also frames the river as a reaper. Javert feels the “chill of the water” and smells the “stale odor of the wet stones.” Moreover, the gulf before him breathes, alive and waiting for him to jump into its grasp. It whispers to him, drawing him towards the edge.
By personifying the abyss, the narrator also takes the blame away from Javert for his death. With a gulf of darkness beneath him, beckoning him, Javert could not have chosen any differently than to jump into its void.
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